Public information is crucial to forming marine sanctuary

The proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would stretch from the coast off Cambria down to Santa Barbara. Photo courtesy of John Lindsey

The proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would stretch from the coast off Cambria down to Santa Barbara. Photo courtesy of John Lindsey

Kudos to the Morro Bay City Council for declining the offer to assemble, on the city’s dime, a stacked panel of antagonists for a series of forums to attack the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (“Morro Bay opts not to host sanctuary forum,” April 14).

The most important sentence in the article was the last: “Council members also noted that a federal sanctuary designation process, if formally advanced, would hold a public information component to allow stakeholders to learn about the effects of a sanctuary and formally weigh in.”

We would just clarify that virtually that entire designation process will consist of that “public information component,” in which everybody will get to have a say, at great length, in multiple forums, in a process lasting more than a year.

Anyone who genuinely wants to see a thorough public process happen can go to tinyurl.com/CHNMSpetition and add his or her name to the list of people asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the White House to initiate it.